The GOP storm clouds are Gathering.
American Exceptionalism is being raised as the Flag ONLY the GOP-Tea Party CAN carry forward ... just listen to the stump speeches.
Just listen to the Global Ideas being forwarded by Conservative thinkers ...
Historian warns of sudden collapse of American 'empire'
by Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer -- July 6, 2010
Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level.
[...]
Ferguson said empires — such as the former Soviet Union and the Roman empire — can collapse quite quickly and the tipping point is often when the cost of servicing an empire’s debt is larger than the cost of its defense budget.
“That has not been the case I think at any point in U.S. history,” Ferguson said. “It will be the case in the next five years.”
Ferguson was conscious of opening the Ideas Festival on such a stark note.
[...]
Ferguson said the financial crisis that started in 2007 has “has accelerated a fundamental shift in the balance of power,” with the U.S. shedding power and China absorbing it.
So, is China going be the "New Red Menace"? The Next Threat our Military Might must set their Empire-building sights on?
I thought China was our Trading Partner ... I thought China was "our Banker"?
Funny, IF China wanted to bring down the American Empire -- wouldn't they just close the Teller Window?
Yet that Empire Meme, floated at an Ideas Festival, several weeks ago was relatively mild, comparatively speaking.
This morning Declining Empire meme made it to the Fox Cable News network, with a new Wall Street-sanctioned promoter. With a bull's-eye on Retirement/Entitlement Programs, as the reason for our Decline as the World's Superpower.
The Wall Street Journal conservative cheerleader Daniel Henninger, was on Fox, spreading his dire warnings. Painting the rhetorical battlelines. Of what is at stake. Of who is at fault.
[Found it:]
Daniel Henninger: Is America a 'Shrinking Superpower'?
What does U.S. need to stimulate growth?
Fox News -- Aug 15, 2011
[But it won't embed.]
Link to Today's Fox clip.
Here are some snippets from Mr. Henninger recent WSJ Op-ed, which he went on FOX to promote:
America as Less Than No. 1
Daniel Henniger, WSJ -- Aug 11, 2011
So this is a taste of what it will be like when the American superpower starts shrinking. Enjoying it yet?
After the humiliation of the United States losing its AAA credit rating; after watching the American stock market descend into chaos; after living for two years in a $15 trillion economy unable to grow beyond 2%, with unemployment rates rarely experienced in the U.S., Americans have their first whiff of inhabiting an empire in decline.
You could divide the country between those who think that it wouldn't be the worst thing for the U.S. to enter the long, falling autumn of its life, as has Western Europe; and those who refuse to go down, who'd do whatever they must to hold the world's No. 1 ranking.
[...]
The Democratic argument has been that the country could maintain its remarkable economic success while performing all these social goals, though with cutbacks in defense spending. But there has never been any sort of coherent economic argument for how we could spend all this money and maintain the U.S.'s long-term growth trend. The S&P downgrade is at bottom a repudiation of 50 years of Democratic economic theory, or its absence.
What they've offered is essentially a dream, often described by them as such. [...]
http://online.wsj.com/...
Were No. 1, Were No. 1 !
Question is Number One of WHAT?
Bullying, Exploiting, Extracting ... of Multi-National Wealth Siphoning?
Of course, Mr Henninger wouldn't necessarily see those as "bad things" -- as he would rather re-write history, than face up to the true Costs of Capitalism ... the brutal tactics of Empire-building ...
Daniel Henninger: Bring Back the Robber Barons
WSJ -- 3/3/2010
http://online.wsj.com/...
Daniel Henninger says there's a difference between entrepreneurs who make a fortune in the free market, and those who gather wealth by manipulating politics.
SO, what say you?
Is American Exceptionalism worth robbing for?
... Robbing from Our Paid-for Retirement Programs, to pay-for the endless Wars, and the endless Tax Cuts of our Offshoring Corporate Billionaires?
Is American Empire worth fighting for? worth dying for?
Worth Paying for with our "endless supply" of National Blood and Treasure and Debt?
Those are the Approaching Rhetorical Battle being drawn up in the Conservative Circles ...
Will we have our Talking Point Ducks is a row, about the appropriate Role for America's over-hyped "Superpower Empire"?
(an Empire, that few of us asked for, by the way.)
About how REAL National Security begins with a Health Economy, and enough Good Jobs right here at Home?
About how National Security must start within the Nation. With REAL Energy Independence.
About how American Troops MUST come home. Their Mission was Accomplished.
Thank them very much ... We can start by Bringing them Home.